DYING STRIPES
WILL THE GREAT CAT SURVIVE?
I
In, Chinese Mythology, tigers are highly reserved. And the great cats have historically inspired everyone from poets to warriors. They now also symbolize vanishing environment that support both animals and humans. There’s a saying that when the tiger disappears, the forest will fall.
According to the Save the Tiger Fund, wild tiger numbers worldwide have slid from one lakh as recently as a century ago to as low as 3200 last year. Extinction looms ominously for the Serbian tiger, the world’s largest cat. A 2009 report by the Serbian Tiger Monitoring Program, which was coordinated by the Wildlife Conservation Society in association with Russian government organizations amongst others, revealed that recent Siberian tiger numbers have plummeted by 41 percent.
“That came as a big shock”, said Judy Mills, coordinator for the International Tiger Coalition.
By Shyam Tenali